Cottages at Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania by Patkau Architects

The retained meadowland above Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is the site of six new cottages. The meadow, which is a fragment of a ‘recent’ cultural landscape, provides a complimentary experience to the surrounding native forest from which to appreciate and understand both native ecology and cultural history. It opens a clearing in the forest; a clearing that establishes the possibility of a sustainable relationship between human occupancy, site and sun.

Falling Water Model

• Architect: Patkau Architects
• Project Name: Cottages at Fallingwater
• Client: Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
• Location: Mill Run, Pennsylvania
• Use: Housing for Educational Programs
• Site Area: Bear Run Nature Reserve, 5189 Acre (21 k㎡)
• Gross Floor Area: 63㎡ (678 sqft) (one bedroom unit) x 4 units = 252 ㎡ (2712 sqft)
• 86㎡ (925 sqft) (two bedroom unit) x 2 units = 172 ㎡ (1850 sqft)
• 99㎡ (1063 sqft) (community pavilion) x 1 units = 99 ㎡ (1063 sqft)
• Total = 523㎡ (5625 sqft)
• Bldg. Coverage Ratio: Not Applicable
• Gross Floor Ratio: Not Applicable
• Bldg. Scale: 1 story below grade
• Structure: Pre-Engineered Corrugated Steel Culvert
• Max. Height: 3.6m (12ft)
• Landscape Area: 26150㎡ (6.5 acre)
• Parking Lot: shared parking with adjacent buildings (1 car per unit = 6 cars)
• Exterior Finish: Grass, Weathering Steel
• Design year: 2010
• Completion year: To be determined

Photo Model In Elevation

Each cottage forms a small ridge. In series, cottages form swells and falls of landform. Each cottage looks over the low point of the swell in front of it toward the line of White Pine and deciduous forest at the meadow’s edge. Cottage-form is an intensification of landscape-form. Just as Fallingwater is an intensification of the rock outcroppings that characterize Bear Run, the meadow cottages are an intensification of the swelling ground-plane of the meadow, made from the very soil and grasses of the meadow itself.

Perspective - Main exterior

The cluster of cottages forms a sheltering micro-climate of sunny prospect. Openings, cut through the landforms by weathering steel portal frames, connect cottage interiors to the meadowland beyond, silently and passively gathering the sun’s energy in the shoulder and winter seasons, shading openings and providing ventilation during the summer’s heat.

The cottages are open in plan, generous with a sense of luminous space. Interiors are surfaced in light toned wood, grounded by concrete floors and sculpted by daylight. A large opening to the southern meadow focuses the living space, allowing easy access to an outdoor terrace. Bedrooms are more enclosed with double or two single beds as required; extra guests – children – can sleep on the long couch in the living space.

Perspective - Main Interior

Durability and longevity characterize both exterior and interior. The grasses of the site are a naturally renewable exterior cladding material, weathering steel ages to a permanent natural finish, while wood and concrete create a warm low maintenance interior.

Perspective - Down Hall

Perspective - Down Trough

Plan

Section A

Section B

Section C

Tags: Mill Run, Pennsylvania

Categories: House, Housing Development

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